Experiencing Stravinsky A Listener's Companion [Hardcover]

Many casual listeners think of Igor Stravinsky as serious, heavy, and hard-to-understand, but readers may be surprised at how much information is provided in this well-researched book on the composer (18821971) about such populist subjects as Hollywood and Walt Disney. Here musicologist and composer Maconie (Avant Garde: An American Odyssey from Gertrude Stein to Pierre Boulez) offers an in-depth, well-documented look at all of Stravinskys works. (The composer did work closely with Disney on Fantasia and spent years in Hollywood.) Maconie hopes readers will not just listen to but experience the manufactured music Stravinsky loved to produce. In fact, the composer relished working with Disney Studios, a film conglomerate that believed animation needed to be choreographed to fit the music, not the reverse. Maconie works hard to place the composer in relation to the world around him. The book includes many quotes from Stravinsky himself, as well as some imagined conversations that keep the text lively. Verdict This accessible book for interested readers features copious footnotes and cited references that make it also a considerable resource for academic study.Experiencing Stravinsky comes intelligently written by a veteran writer and musical polymath. It offers highly informed reflections on the music and aesthetics of a monumentally significant composer. . . .[I]t addresses anyone wanting to listen to Stravinskys music, and to heighten their understanding or experience of this extraordinary music. Part of this books distinction certainly lies in assuming ordinary, untrained listeners can make sense of the music by thinking of it in relation to broad intellectual backgrounds.Most first-time listeners to The Rite of Spring or The Rakes Progress feel the need for guidance before they can appreciate just how listener-friendly the music is. Maconie provides this guidance in abundance.Refreshing to have a Stravinsky study that doesn't go on at length about octatoniclÃ-